Effective heat treatment

We use various heat treatment processes to ensure that components have a uniform microstructure and the requisite hardness. MTU Aero Solutions offers you access to these processes.

Annealing processes To achieve a uniform microstructure and proper hardness, normalizing, soft annealing, recrystallizing and stress relieving are used.

Process	Objective	Operating Temperature °C
Normalizing	Heat treatment for subsequent hardening processes Gives material an even structure	900 – 960°C
Soft annealing	Reduces hardness of material for subsequent processing steps, such as machining or forming	700 – 900°C
Recrystallization annealing	“Softening” materials Improving deformation characteristics of materials	900 –1100°C
Stress-relief annealing	Reducing internal stresses Avoiding the formation of cracks and warpage	400 –1180°C
Solution annealing	Placing elements involved in precipitation hardening phases into solution	600 –1180°C
Aging	Targeted precipitation of finely distributed particles in order to increase strength and obtain certain characteristics	400 – 900°C

These processes can be carried out in air, protective gas and vacuums (protective gas up to 950°C).

Hardening processes To prolong the life of components, they are hardened and tempered.

Process	Objective	Operating temperature °C
Precipitation hardening	Increasing the hardness and lifetime of various base materials	400 –1190°C
Quenching and tempering	Increasing hardness while obtaining good toughness Avoiding warpage	500 – 940°C 700 –1050°C
Case hardening	Targeted increase of hardness in specific areas	800 – 940°C
Carburizing	Thermochemical treatment of a workpiece in an austenitic state to increase the amount of carbon on the surface, which is then present in a solid solution in the austenite	900 – 930 °C
Gas nitriding	Thermochemical treatment that creates a nitride layer on the surface of a workpiece	490 – 525°C
Hardness testing	All common hardness testing methods